Why should you defragment your hard drive?

User Rating: / 4PoorBest

What is defragmentation? Think of your desk and all the files you have in it. If you had papers in those files for a particular client for and you had 10 pieces of paper and you put all 10 in random folders and not together think about the added time it would take to gather all of those together when you needed them? Your computer is the same way. When you install software your computer tends to spread the file around (this is what we call fragmentation.) In real life you work more productively when you are organized and Have every thing together. The same is true with your computer. What defragment software does is it put files that are part of the same program or software together. The files are not placed close together and therefore it takes the hard drive longer to access them all when you need them and that slows your computer down. Defragmentation of your hard drive will shorten the time it takes the head which reads the data to move have and forth accessing your files, due to the fact it does not have to move so much. This results in a computer that runs faster and can actually extend the life of your hard drive. Remember that the hard drive is a mechanical device. We tend to forget that sometimes, but it is and all mechanical devices will eventually fail. The fact that it has to work less after it is defragmented results in it lasting longer. Hopefully delaying the time that it eventually fails and you loose all of your data due to the fact that you did not back it up... but that is the subject of another article. Now don't think it is going to change the location your stuff, all that safe. Your folders will still be there, your files will look exactly the same. The only thing you will notice is the different in speed and the life of your hard drive. Here at PCModer we use Auslogics Disk Defrag. It is a fast alternative to the Default windows defragmenter (witch is one of the worst out there). If you want to use the Windows defrag it will work but you will have a long wait, especially if you have never defragged. You should defragment once a month to keep every thing running smoothly. You PC will still work if you don.t, it will just be slower. When you do run defrag you should stay off your PC while it is running but this is not a requirement. The format of your hard drive is also a factor in the need and frequency of defragmantation. If you are still running FAT 32 you will definitely see improved performance after a defrag. NTFS will improve as well but due to it.s nature it does suffer as much as a drive that is formatted to FAT 32. You have noting to loose by defragmenting you drive unless you enjoy shorter hard drive life and a slow computer. If you have never done it you need to for sure. If you are afraid of non-Windows software than use the default program but use something for sure, you won't be sorry.